


gaming 101

by EmperorSnarkon (launchmeintospace)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Keithtober 2018, My one (1) contribution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-23 15:09:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16161410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/launchmeintospace/pseuds/EmperorSnarkon
Summary: Just two bros having a heart-to-heart over video games with a nice slice of sleep deprivation.





	gaming 101

**Author's Note:**

> hello yes it is me, mr. inconsistency and master of disappearing for months on end. this is my one and only contribution for keithtober writing wise. thank you for giving this a shot anyway!

Words have a physical weight to them. A texture and a shape. No matter how smooth or bite-sized, however, they always seemed to stick at the back of Keith’s throat. Sometimes, he was lucky enough for them to stumble over his tongue instead. 

Becoming the new black paladin fixed none of this.

Keith was still as clueless and as rash as before, if not  _ worse _ since the others relied on him even more. They looked to him for first choices and final decisions but all Keith could think was of literally  _ anyone _ else was better suited for this role than him. He knew crossing his arms made him look defensive (and maybe he  _ was _ ) but he had to hide his trembling fingers somehow, right? 

Everyone knew leaders had to be strong and decisive. It took every muscle in Keith's body to keep the questioning lilt out of his voice when he issued commands in the control room. In the midst of battle, adrenaline clipped his phrases into perfect, firm commands, and the fast pace of fighting kept him from second-guessing himself until much later. 

Much laying-in-bed-in-his-clothes and listlessly-staring-at-the-ceiling-mid-sleep-cycle later. 

This so happened to be one of those nights. 

Keith couldn't be sure, but he felt he had been patiently waiting for sleep for hours. Nighttime had a certain way with time, however, that could easily make that eternity minutes. 

Rolling out of bed with a huff, Keith carefully abandoned chasing after sheep or whatever it was that he usually did trying to coax himself to sleep and headed out the door without a plan. As most of his choices tended to be. 

The Castle of Lions was never dark, not even at the most inactive hour of the sleep cycle, so he could see perfectly down both ends of the hall his room was stationed in with ease. Neither end, getting dimmer the farther away he looked, seemed promising. But, he supposed, since he was already wasting away hours, he might as well get some form of training in. With that half-baked thought in mind, Keith started padding down the left end, his exhausted brain finding it only  _ slightly  _ funny how his efforts to keep his steps silent resulted in something like a waddle. 

Keith hadn’t waddled down more than seven steps when faint music caught his attention. Stilling in front of a bedroom door he vaguely registered as Lance’s, Keith’s brain took its sweet time processing that what he was hearing was video game music. 

Was Lance up at who-knows-when in the morning playing video games?

Before he could reason to himself whether or not people were gaming was irrelevant to the rudeness of interrupting people’s night, Keith rapped his knuckles against the door softly. Easy to ignore- somewhat of a compromise, his idiot brain half reasoned to the half that insisted he leave Lance and his gaming be. 

After a moment, the game music changed to a little repetitive jingle and the door swished open. Both Lance and Keith seemed surprised to see each other.  _ Why am I surprised _ ? Keith thought to himself as he gazed at the sleepy expression on the new red paladin, to which his own brain offered the pensive reply of ‘ _ idiot _ .’ 

“What’s up?” Lance rasped, adjusting an eye mask he was using as a headband. 

“Uh, nothing,” Keith whispered back. “I just couldn't sleep and I heard music comin’ from here- sorry. I knocked without thinking. Didn’t mean to bother.” That didn’t mean he made a move to leave, just shifted his weight from foot to foot. 

His actions were starting to catch up to his head, quickening his pulse and warming his face. Like a moron, Keith -Leader of Voltron, Paladin of the Black Lion- shuffled on his socked feet in front of his teammate’s door, looking lost despite his room being right next door. 

Lance was heaven-sent. An easy smile curled up the corners of his mouth, softening his already mellow expression. “Yeah, I couldn’t sleep either. Wanna- wanna play some levels with me?” Shifting sideways to allow Keith to enter, he gestured with one hand to the big screen mounted above stacks of machinery, the smallest of which had a white controller plugged in. “I have a second controller somewhere…” 

“Uh, yeah.” Keith slid in and knelt next to the controller, curiously examining the pixelated art of the video game bouncing in place as Lance rummaged through drawers that extended from the wall. ‘Pause’ was spelled out in big yellow letters mid-screen. “What’s this about?” 

“It’s kinda generic, y’know? Guy saves princess from evil villain and what-not, but it’s fun. Plus the graphics are so cute.” Lance answered in a hushed but enthusiastic voice. 

Skeptically, Keith glanced at Lance with a raised eyebrow. “But they’re so square?” 

“It’s charming!” Lance insisted, sitting criss-crossed by Keith and unwinding the controller cable to plug it in. “Are you a gamer? I didn't think so. If you were, I’d bet my entire left shoe you'd be one of those snobs in love with hyper-realistic graphics like… like with the Final Fantasy games or whatever.” 

“Final Fantasy? Who is she?” Keith half-joked. 

“Don't ask me. We've never interacted.” Lance said, starting a new game file and adding Keith in as player two. 

When Keith took the controller, he noted the grips were the tiniest bit warm. Conveniently, none of the buttons were labeled with anything useful. “What does what?” 

“Oh, um, the buttons with the shapes are your, like, fighting buttons except the circle one. That one makes your character duck or stand up. The joystick or whatever is to move your character around.” He pointed to the corresponding buttons on his own controller as he explained. An impish grin narrowed his eyes. “I kinda just button smash to fight with wild abandon. Sound familiar?” 

His sharp elbow nudged Keith’s arm playfully and it took all of Keith’s self-control to scrunch his mouth into a mock scowl. “Haha,” he said sarcastically, nudging Lance back with his shoulder. “Bet I can button smash better than you.” 

“Oh, mullet, you are talking to the  _ resident _ button-smashing  _ expert _ .” Lance crooned, starting the game without warning. 

Alarmed, Keith started smashing buttons. “You cheat!” 

With a short, Lance folded over laughing. “Nothing is even  _ happening _ yet, dude. This is the intro.” 

“Can we skip? I have a title to usurp.” 

“No, and no way that's a real word.”

They debated the existence of ‘usurp' through the intro and into the first level. At some point, they stopped talking and the only sound was the clicks of furious button smashing accompanied by Keith’s soft swearing. Determined to hit the buttons faster than Lance, he kept forgetting the circle was basically useless, forcing his pixelated avatar to duck at the least opportune of moments. Despite his proficiency with a real sword, the tiny pixel sword his avatar swung randomly managed one hit out of 10. 

“I think I'm getting good at this,” Keith mumbled. 

“Oh, totally, my dude,” Lance snickered. 

They fell quiet again, straining eyes staring hard at the TV screen as they advanced another two levels. Frequent yawns interrupted their silence. One of Lance’s even managed to pop his jaw, a fact he did not hesitate to share with Keith.  

They slayed a yellow dragon and won the level, cheering overly enthusiastically for the hour. Keith, a small grin fixed on his face for some undetermined amount of time, resettled into his slouch, wiggling the joystick in anticipation. When the next level didn’t immediately start, Keith turned to face Lance in confusion. 

Lance was already gazing at Keith, his thin eyebrows pulled low and thoughtful. The yellow-toned light of the screen highlighted half his face, casting the rest into sharp shadows. Keith pretended that was why his stare was so unnerving. “Wanna talk about what was keeping you up?” 

Keith couldn’t control the jolt of his eyebrows. “No…? It’s just one of those nights, I guess.” 

“Hmm, yeah. I get that. I’m always here for you, bro. Even if it’s just to talk. I’m especially good at that.” Lance tried for a cocky grin -- complete with a finger gun -- but his expression was too gentle. 

“Yeah, I know… Thank you. I’m- I’m here for you, too,” Keith did his best to show his honesty through his expression but he may have only succeeded in looking dejectedly constipated. “I’m pretty sure that without you, everything would be turning out a whole lot…. Different.” 

The last word was delivered as an insincere huff of laughter because there was nothing amusing about the disaster and dread Keith pictured when he thought of what he would be like as Black Paladin without his right-hand man. God, he could practically hear the screams and feel the flames of some big fire he and his luck would manage to spark in  _ space _ . 

Lance’s smile flipped into a frown. “What do you mean?” 

“Well, you’re… helping me. A lot. Um, I know that we have our differences and butt heads a lot, but I honestly think you’re my best friend. Without you, I wouldn’t be able to lead Voltron- ‘cause that stuff I was doin’ before you talked some sense into me? That was pure unadulterated idiocity. And I know that. I know I was putting the team in danger and I honestly still feel like that’s what every decision of mine leads to- but I feel more sure about them when you back me up- when you improve them. I-” Keith choked on absolutely nothing, staring with determination at the white of his knuckles clenched around the controller. “I wouldn’t be able to lead Voltron without you.” He finished lamely.  

Movement at the corner of his eyes had him glancing up at Lance. A slender hand was pressed against Lance’s chest, a glittering expression of wide eyes and slightly upturned eyebrows set onto his angular features. “That means a lot to me. Thank you… And not to steal my own thunder, but… You aren’t exactly the rash moron you think you are.” Glancing to the side, Lance shrugged his shoulders with an uncertain flash of teeth. “You just… need to slow down sometimes. Think things through. You’re getting a hella’va’lot better about it too. Plus, you’re more… perceptive? Appreciative? Open? You’re more open to team input and encourage ideas and all that. It’s cool.” 

“‘Cool’?” Keith teased, warmth and goosebumps flashing over his skin.

“Shut up!” Lance said hastily, bodily shoving Keith over. “I’m trying to say that it’s really nice having a leader that’s more your equal, ‘cause they listen better to what you have to say. I know  _ I _ appreciate it, so I’m sure the rest of the team does too.” 

Fond and content, Keith’s shoulders shook with a few silent laughs, his eyes trained to the ceiling so he could avoid Lance’s earnest stare. Something told him that the second their eyes connected his quintessence would eject itself into the astral plane. “I- yeah. Thank you… so much.”

“NP, bro.” Lance sighed, moving to lay down next to Keith. 

They both stared at the bland ceiling, the corners of their mouths curled nearly imperceptively.  

Lance turned his head to glimpse Keith’s glittering eyes through his bangs. “I think of you as my best friend too.” 

Keith couldn’t even hope to hold back the grin that spread across his face. He supposed it was as inevitable as evolution. An unstoppable force as much as his love for his team and family. An immovable object like his… his… well, yeah. You get it.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for readin!!


End file.
